Posts

Finding an accommodation in France is not easy, especially in Paris and its suburb with an extremely tense real estate.

Employees under a trial period face the issue all the more so if the owner has decided to subscribe to a ”GLI – Garantie de Loyers Impayés” (an insurance on unpaid rent).

In France and especially in Paris, more and more landlords/lessors opt for this insurance. For a monthly fee equal to 3% to 6% of the monthly rent, the GLI protects property owners against the risk of unpaid or overdue rent. Many real estate agencies negotiate group rates and resell this insurance to their own customers, which make them the main decision-maker.

To measure the risk of unpaid/overdue rent, strict criteria are defined and they are not negotiable. Among those, the future tenant should have a net salary of 3 times the amount of the rent (including rental charges) and be under a confirmed permanent contract.

Consequently, any employee under a trial period is not a suitable candidate and files of applicants under a trial period are automatically rejected.

This leads to a high number of inaccessible properties to foreign or newly hired employees and although we screen the properties that will be presented to you, the presence of a GLI is not always advertised or even known by the person putting the property on the market.

When no GLI is subscribed to on a property, the following options can facilitate the situation:

The physical guarantor: To counterbalance the trial period a physical guarantor is the go-to solution. The guarantor must be based in France and have French income corresponding to a minimum of 3 times the rent concerned. Therefore, it is often difficult for a foreign employee to have a physical guarantor.

The bank guarantee: A bank guarantee (equivalent to 3 months up to 1 year worth of rents, depending on the lessors/landlords’ instructions) is another solution. This option is quite expensive because it leads to a high amount of money frozen on a bank account as well as additional banking fees and account maintenance fees to be paid by the tenant.

The Visale guarantee: The Garantie Visale is a free of charge governmental service that offers to be the guarantor when renters have no French physical guarantor. This guarantee is subject to conditional access. Unfortunately, few agencies and landlords agree to use this guarantee so far as it is still quite novel.

The inverted GLI: Very recently, private insurance brokers created the GLI inverse or inverted GLI. The tenant pays between 3 and 6% per month of his rent to a private insurance company, which guarantees the loss of rent for the owner. This option is quite expensive for the tenant and is not well known nor widely accepted by the lessors as it is quite new as well.

Based in Lyon, France’s second largest city in terms of economic vibrancy, Home Conseil Relocation serves the relocation needs of businesses throughout France and especially in Paris, with a team of qualified consultants.

More about TIRATIRA is an aligned network of quality mobility service providers. The network provides access to leading mobility experts from around the world that provide local solutions to global challenges. Network members exchange best practices and share this value with the industry through benchmarking exercises.

As Brexit fast approaches for 2019, the French Government recently presented a series of measures to increase Paris’s attractiveness in anticipation of the United Kingdom’s exit from the European Union, at a time when more than 3500 jobs are expected to be transferred from London’s financial sector to France:

Already announced in December 2017, a reduction, specifically tailored for the financial sector of France’s social contributions is coupled with a lower tax on high salaries and an attractive status for expatriates coming into France, extended from 5 to 8 years. Similarly, the Governement just announced investment funds’ ‘carried interests’ will be subject to the “flat-tax” instead of regular salary income, further increasing France’s competitiveness.

Regarding Paris’s offer in terms of international schooling, the Prime Minister announced an international school would open in 2019 in Courbevoie, next to Paris’s financial district of La Défense. Two more international schools are set to open by 2021 in Paris and its surroundings.

The Government intends to ciment Paris as the first financial center in mainland Europe.

All our team at Home Conseil Relocation is on deck around consequences of Brexit in order to make your transition into France as smooth as possible.

Based in Lyon, France’s second largest city in terms of economic vibrancy, Home Conseil Relocation serves the relocation needs of businesses throughout France and especially in Paris, with a team of qualified consultants.

More about TIRATIRA is an aligned network of quality mobility service providers. The network provides access to leading mobility experts from around the world that provide local solutions to global challenges. Network members exchange best practices and share this value with the industry through benchmarking exercises.

More about Home Conseil RelocationBased in Lyon, France’s second largest city in terms of economic vibrancy, Home Conseil Relocation serves the relocation needs of businesses throughout France and especially in Paris, with a team of qualified consultants.

More about TIRATIRA is an aligned network of quality mobility service providers. The network provides access to leading mobility experts from around the world that provide local solutions to global challenges. Network members exchange best practices and share this value with the industry through benchmarking exercises.

In many parts of Europe local economies are still struggling to recover from the 2007/8 economic downturn. Indeed we only need to look at Spain to see the amount of repossessed properties from the downturn although thankfully many have now been resold. The recent ING International Survey Homes and Mortgages 2017 report casts a very interesting light on the European market and expectations in the short, medium and longer term.

The survey takes in 15,000 individuals from 15 different countries and enquiries about their attitudes to the housing market and how they expect house prices to perform in the future.

GENERAL EUROPEAN HOUSE PRICES

In general European house prices are expected to rise over the next 12 months with 59% of those who responded to the survey reflecting positive expectations. This is the first increase in two years with the figures for 2015 and 2016 stuck stubbornly at 56%. If we go back to 2014 only 53% of those who responded to the survey had expected house prices to increase over the following 12 month period. It may be a relatively small increase in confidence but thankfully there is finally some positive movement.

When you compare this to the US which saw an increase of two percentage points between 2016 and 2017 (57% and 59% respectively) and Australia where there was a six percentage point increase between 2016 and 2017 (50% and 56% respectively) this is not too bad.

COUNTRIES WITH HIGHEST EXPECTATIONS

Many will be surprised to learn that recent confidence in the Romanian housing market is highest among European countries. The corresponding figure in 2016 was 52% although this has jumped to a phenomenal 72% in 2017. So, a staggering 72% of those who responded expect the Romanian property market to increase over the next 12 months. Could we be seeing a re-emergence of emerging markets?

As we touched on above, there has been some improvement in the Spanish housing market over the last 12 months with a jump in confidence from 52% up to 66%. The corresponding figure for the Czech Republic is an increase of 13 percentage points from 52% up to 65%. Poland at 51%, France at 54% and Luxembourg had 86% are the next three markets which have shown a significant increase on the corresponding 2016 confidence figures.

CZECH REPUBLIC | Major New Legislation Brings New ICT Rules and Other ChangesA broad new piece of legislation that Pro-Link GLOBAL has been following for some months is now set to come into force in the Czech Republic on August 15. Act No. 222/2017 makes extensive changes to the Republic’s Act on Stay of Foreigners: including various changes to the current rules on employee cards, permanent residency, temporary residency, and long-term visas, as well as the introduction of three new permit categories for intra-company transfers (ICTs), foreign investors, and seasonal workers. The more significant aspects of the new law applicable to companies and their foreign employees include the following.

Effective August 28, companies applying for work permits under the Temporary Foreign Worker Program (TFWP) for occupations requiring Labour Market Impact Assessments (LMIAs) will be required to post the open position in the Government of Canada’s Job Bank and enroll the position in its Job Match Servicefunction. This requirement applies to both low-wage and high-wage positions.

While companies currently seeking LMIA-based work permits are already required to use three recruitment methods, all companies (regardless of province or territory) now must include the Job Bank and its Job Match Service as one of their three recruitment methods. Note, however, that Immigration, Refugees, and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) is currently exempting primary agriculture employers from this requirement pending further review of its impact on that sector.

DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC OF CONGO | Conversion to New Biometric Work Card RequiredThe Ministry of Labor (MOL) of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) is in the process of converting to new biometric work cards. Foreign nationals currently applying for work authorization in the DRC will receive the new biometric work card. However, the MOL has further mandated that current holders of valid non-biometric work cards must visit their local MOL office to submit their biometric data and obtain the new biometric card. Reportedly, authorities will begin visiting work sites later this month to assure that all foreign workers have either converted over to the new biometric card or have submitted their biometrics in the process of doing so.

FRANCE | Efforts to Bring 48-Hour Processing to Tourist Visas Benefits Business Visas As Well

In a push to boost tourism, which has tapered-off in recent years, French authorities have pledged to cut tourist visitor visa processing times from the typical 10-days to a mere 48-hours for visitors from Russia, India, Thailand, the Philippines, Indonesia, Cambodia, Laos, and Myanmar. While the push to speed processing times has reportedly already been tested in several other French diplomatic posts abroad over the last year, this latest move appears to be a more expansive rollout and will soon be available in more nations as European Union visa procedures improve. These new processing times are scheduled to begin on November 1.

GREECE | Posted Worker Rules Now ImplementedWhile Greece transposed the European Union Posted Workers Enforcement Directive (2014/67/EU) into its national law in 2016, actual implementation and enforcement of its provisions had been delayed until now due to administrative procedural challenges. However, effective immediately, companies posting foreign workers to Greece are now subject to the Directive’s requirements including notification to the appropriate labor authorities on or before the start date of the assignment, appointment of a designated local representative to liaise with officials regarding the posting, and retention of certain documents following the end of the assignment.

JAPAN | New One-Year Permanent Residency Pathway Now In Place for Highly Skilled Professionals
Last December, Pro-Link GLOBAL reported on Japan’s early moves to implement the world’s shortest path to permanent residence, presenting certain highly-skilled foreign nationals the opportunity to become permanent residents after just one-year. For more details, see our Immigration Dispatch of December 5. Information coming out of Japan recently indicates that the government has now implemented the new liberal permanent residence requirements and has begun accepting applications.

Effective July 26, the Republic of China (Taiwan) Workforce Development Agency introduced a new work permit specifically designed to make it easier for spouses of foreign national employees to work in the country. The new work permit is available to foreign spouses of foreign nationals employed in Taiwan in “Class A” professional or technical work in the engineering, architecture, professional services, health care, and manufacturing sectors. The new work permit would then allow the employee’s accompanying foreign spouse to likewise engage in “Class A” work, either on a full-time or part-time basis.